Some Important Conversations
by alicekinsno1
Summary: Yet another pre-series fic about CC and Mao, set a few years after my other story, A Day in the Life Plus Extra. Mao and CC basically go about their daily lives, but each bring up some awkward conversation topics. Rated T as a precaution.
1. Chapter 1

Some Special Talks

_A/N: Yes, another pre-series story about Mao and CC! This one takes place around three years after "A Day in the Life Plus Extra". I OWN NOTHING (no, not even the story CC tells Mao at the end. It's from a compilation by a certain Tasha Tudor:P)!!_

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It was a lovely day in the spring, and CC and Mao were sharing some time in the shack where they made their home. Mao, nine years old, was reading very cautiously from the pad he had written on in Chinese. CC gave a grin of satisfaction. It was slightly more than two years since she had taken to teaching Mao how to read and write, and she was greatly impressed by his progress, so much so that she had often considered teaching him Japanese (as an extension of the characters he had already learned) and English for extra measure.

"Was that good, CC?" asked Mao, holding up the pad.

"Yes!" said CC, more enthusiastically than she had hoped, "Y-yes it was. Mao, you're just as smart as I was when I was your age!" Mao beamed in response. Of course he would consider that a compliment! To him, CC could do no wrong. "Come on," she said, standing up, "Let's go look after our garden."

CC and Mao had set up gardens to grow fruits and vegetables, and even a few types of cereals. They ate whatever was in season, and no longer had to rely on the unpredictability of their surrounding environment; but the plants required constant maintenance. CC insisted that Mao wear a hat to keep the sun off while he worked, and made frequent forays into civilization to stock up on sunscreen, which the little albino boy went through like nobody's business.

Except that Mao was, at this point, getting very big indeed. He seemed destined to be as tall as CC before he was even ten, and he hadn't reached puberty yet. To restrict the amount of square inches he exposed to the sun, thus making the sunscreen last longer, CC found herself dressing him in increasingly long clothes.

Once they approached the gardens, they immediately began weeding, programmed to do so by experience (they had gotten up before the sun rose in order to water them). It took them the entire morning to cover all their land, at which point both of them were very hungry. But they were used to this routine, and at this point had set up a reliable food storage below their home, where they kept salted and smoked meats, pickled vegetables, dried fruits and nuts, flour, bread, honey, and the occasional extra thing. They ate bread, meat, and fruit; and then returned to work.

"CC," said Mao, "Why don't we just build something that can get us water right here in the gardens, so we don't have to get up so early and go back and forth?

"And what might that be?" CC humored him. "How would you do that?" To her surprise, Mao's face lit up at once.

"It'd be easy!" he said, "I'd need enough tables to reach from the water to the fields, circles to use as wheels, some kind of belt, a handle for us to turn attached to one of the wheels, and some really strong string! And something to put the water in, of course!"

"You really figured that out by yourself?" said CC.

"Oh, well... yeah," said Mao, glowing with pride, "Every day for a month!"

"Well... that's quite something," said CC, swept up in the moment, "Maybe I'll just have to get those things for you." Mao was always coming up with new ways to do the chores, impeded only by a lack of materials. In another life, he might make a pretty decent engineer or mechanic. But it didn't do to think about that. "W-why don't you go get some more fertilizer?" CC suggested to Mao. He knew exactly what she meant. "And... see if you can find any more fruit while you're at it."

"Okay, CC," said Mao, running off. CC was glad to see him go. Now she could reconfigure her thoughts in peace.


	2. Chapter 2

_Second part's here! Yay! This would be the serious part.... Eventually._

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CC chased garden pests away from her crops all day long, and checked the slug traps and the guards she and Mao had put around the plants. It was late in the afternoon when Mao returned, carrying a large piece of wood covered in brown mess, and a few branches with fruit. The two of them put the mess over their fields, and then Mao went to get the fishing-hook he had fashioned himself from a thornbush while CC set about the task of building a mound fire, piling the firewood on top of a rock which she had covered thickly in soil.

It took a long time for Mao to catch anything at all. When at last he returned with the fish he had collected, he gave them to CC to prepare, which she attempted to stew in the berries Mao had collected earlier, using a pot and screen they had stolen.

By the time the sun had gone down, the two of them were finally ready to eat. Mao began talking really excitedly about his experiences earlier. "...I saw a deer giving birth!" he announced happily.

"Oh, really?" CC felt joy rising inside of her at his own enthusiasm.

"Yeah," said Mao. "CC," he asked, cocking his head to one side, "How was I born?"

"W-well," said CC, not sure exactly how to put it, "You... For you to be born someone would have had to... that is to say, just like the deer."

"You mean I was just... someone just squeezed me out of... their...."

"Well... yes," said CC.

"Eew, gross!"

"After... carrying you around in her body for nine months." CC was beginning to enjoy Mao's adorable over-the-top disgust and fascination.

"How do you know so much?" asked Mao.

"It's actually common knowledge," said CC, "Most grown-ups know that."

"CC, can we try doing that?" said Mao. "I'm a boy and you're a girl and...!"

"B-but Mao...," said CC, alarmed, "Y-you're not even old enough to have children yet!" CC wondered if it was worth mentioning that as a side effect of her immortality, she was infertile and couldn't have children anyway.

"Not until I'm seventeen, right?" Mao sighed glumly. That was her answer to most questions about things he could only do when older. It was almost more than CC could stand, and she frantically began to reassure herself that of course Mao didn't mean it; that he assumed it was a lot easier than it really was, and he would soon forget about it forever. The idea that Mao would want her children when he was seventeen made her feel impossibly dirty, to say the very least. She returned to serving him and herself their food, not saying another word, much to Mao's chagrin.

The two of them were friends again by bedtime, however.

As Mao and CC lay curled up together in their little shelter that night, Mao said to CC: "Will you tell me a bedtime story?"

"Sure," said CC, who had just the story to tell. "Okay, so... once upon a time, in the country, there lived a nice family, with two beautiful children. The oldest was a little blond boy of five, named Willy, and the younger one, four, was Jenny."

"Oh, good," said Mao. He liked stories about children, being one; and hung onto CC's every word from there on out. He giggled inwardly at Willy and Jenny's funny names; but by now he was used to CC telling stories from all cultures, so he didn't think anything of it.

"So, Willy and Jenny lived happily for awhile until their parents died, and they were left all alone. They were found by a kindly woodcutter, who offered to help them...." And so the story went on. The woodcutter eventually left Willy and Jenny all alone, but Mao hung on regardless, waiting for the two children to be rescued and come to the happily ever after he expected.

But that happily ever after never came. At last, CC reached the end of the story: "...Willy and Jenny then gave up and lay down in the deep woods, and a little mother bird, who saw the two of them, said to herself: 'Our children are nice and warm in their nest, but these two have no one. Let's sing them a lullaby.' So the bird sang her lullaby and the two children fell asleep. And that night they froze to death peacefully in each other's arms, and suffered no more."

Mao was almost in tears. "T-that's the end?" he said, trembling and shrinking into himself a little, "No 'happily ever after?!'"

"No," said CC. "The children are happy because they're not suffering anymore and can join their parents. That's the idea, anyway."

"Oh... gee...," said Mao, "Ah... that's... a good story," he ventured, trying to hide his crushing disappointment, "But... but it needs a new ending. Why can't someone nice like you come and rescue them like you did me?"

"Mao... not everything is happily ever after. And not everyone can be rescued," CC offered, pain swelling up inside her as she thought of what Mao's association with her would ultimately mean.

"Oh, well... at least I have you," said Mao, "And I'll live happily ever after with you, right?" His eyes were so hopeful, and also uncertain, that CC in spite of herself desperately wanted to simply pull Mao close to her and never let go, reassure him that of course she would always be there for him, and never leave him alone. He was her little boy. But it was just...

CC curled up very small, passively accepting Mao's rough embraces. "What's wrong?" he ventured.

"Oh, nothing I'm... just..." In a luxurious deception, CC reached out, put her arms around the boy, and began running her fingers through his hair as he fell asleep, whispering as she did so, "Maybe someday... I'll show you the way those two did live happily ever after, after all...."


End file.
